Hitherto, since the accession of Henri IV, the French Court had been one of the least splendid in Europe; if, indeed, it could in reality have been said to exist at all--a circumstance to which many causes had conduced. During his separation from Marguerite, and before his second marriage, Henry had cared little for the mere display of royalty. His previous poverty had accustomed him to many privations as a sovereign, which he had sought to compensate by self-indulgence as a man; and thus he made a home in the houses of the most wealthy of his courtiers, such as Zamet, Gondy, and other dissipated and convenient sycophants, with whom he could fling off the trammels of rank, and indulge in the ruinously high play or other still more objectionable amusements to which he was addicted. On the arrival of the Tuscan Princess, however, all was changed; and, as though he sought to compensate to her by splendour and display for the mortifications which awaited her private life, the King began forthwith to revive the traditional magnificence of the Court. Two days after their arrival at the Louvre, Henry conducted his Queen to the royal palaces of Fontainebleau and St. Germain; and on the 18th of the month, their Majesties, attended by the whole of their respective households, and accompanied by all the princes and great nobles then resident in the capital, partook of a superb banquet at the Arsenal, given by Sully in honour of his appointment as Grand-Master of the Artillery. At this festival the minister, casting aside the gravity of his functions and the dignity of his rank, and even forgetful, as it would appear, of the respect which he owed to his new sovereign, not satisfied with pressing upon his guests the costly viands that had been prepared for them, no sooner perceived that the Italian ladies of her Majesty's suite were greatly attracted by the wine of Arbois, of which they were partaking freely, quite unconscious of its potency, than he caused the decanters containing the water that they mingled with it to be refilled with another wine of equal strength, but so limpid as to be utterly undistinguishable to the eye from the purer liquid for which it had been substituted. The consequences of this cruel pleasantry may be inferred; the heat, the movement, and the noise by which they were surrounded, together with the increased thirst caused by the insidious draughts that they were unconsciously imbibing, only induced the unfortunate Florentines to recur the more perseveringly to their refreshing libations; and at length the results became so apparent as to attract the notice of the King, who, already prepossessed like Sully himself against the Queen's foreign retinue, laughed heartily at a piece of treachery which he appeared to consider as the most amusing feature of the entertainment.[133]